DRAGONS OF FOREVER: When Eternity Blinks
by Strannik
Summary: [Valentine's Day Story] For all their maturity, immortals can have the weirdest hand-ups


Welcome to a secret world that hides beneath the surface of the mundane. It is world of urban legends and rumors, a world of astonishing deeds and epic battles. Meet its enigmatic inhabitants. Learn their secrets, their desires, their beliefs, their hopes and their dreams. Listen to the tales of pain, injustice, compassion, kindness, courage, teamwork, love, sacrifice and hope. Meet the guardian angels, the warriors, the philosophers, the priests, the phantoms and the wanderers.  But remember – once you enter this world, you can never truly leave it.

DRAGONS OF FOREVER: When the Eternity Blinks

I sat on the roof of my apartment building. Technically, it was supposed to be evening, but the sun wasn't in a hurry. It seemed that it wanted to show off as much as possible. And as I watched the sky fill with bright orange hues and magnificent golden clouds, I decided that the sun succeeded beyond its own wildest expectations.

Up at the north, I could see the stunning skyscrapers bathed in the sun's final rays. I heard the shouts of teenagers, honking of the cars, ear-shattering music, laughter of the little kids and giggling of awkward couples. I breathed surprisingly clean air (thanks to all the greenery the City Council planted all over the place back in the 70s). I relished every sight, every sensation. Even though it seemed like I've been here for less then a year, I felt like this was where I belonged.

Meridian City. Tucked away in a fairly peaceful corner of Pennsylvania, it was one of the biggest centers of culture, science and technology on this side of the planet. According to the city's motto, it was a place where anyone could make their dreams come true.

Well, I got my dream. And from where I was sitting, she never looked better.

She danced across the roof, her body shifting into different martial art forms at jaw-dropping speeds. A martial artist in me trying to discern her style. But a more sensible part of me told the brooding ninja to shut up and enjoy the show.

"Hey Richard, what are you looking at?" she asked in between leaps.

"The most beautiful thing in the entire universe."

"Oh really?" she smiled coyly, "where is it?"

I chuckled: "I don't know, Miyoko. I guess you'll just have to wait and see."

She winked and went back to practicing forms.

I met her back in 1514, when I took part in the Portuguese expedition to China. I was a sailor from Monaco. She was a governor's daughter. Other then immortality, we had almost nothing in common. Yet somehow, we got together. As time went on, we learned that we had far more in common than we originally thought. Against all odds, we managed to stay together.

That is until the supposedly unsinkable Titanic got hit by an iceberg.

Long story short, we were separated. We spent the next ninety years searching for each other. A few months ago, we "accidentally" bumped into each other right here in Meridian City. Since then, we've been trying to catch up all the years we lost.

Which, truth be told, wasn't nearly as easy as it sounded.

The moment an immortals die their first death, they stop aging. As the world changes around them, they are doomed to stay the same. Well, on the outside, anyway. On the inside, personal experiences continue to define them.

It has been almost a century. I have changed. Miyoko changed. Sometimes, I wondered if she was still the same woman I fell in love with. What if I fell so hopelessly behind that we would never be able to have what we had before?  

Miyoko I knew always loved her long, amazingly dark hair. She would _never_cut it any shorter then ten centimeters below her shoulders. Well, yesterday, she did just that. Now, her hair barely touches her neck. Oh, she kept the long streaks right by her ears, but that didn't make any difference. Miyoko CUT HER HAIR!

She said she felt like changing it.

 I was stunned.  Heck, I am still a little stunned. 

Yet a more reasonable part of me wondered what the heck was the big deal. After all, I've traded my long braid for a shorter, more practical style centuries ago. I survived wigs, crew cuts, beads and afros. Besides, when it comes to hair, women always had it worse. They were forced to do things that would make even the bravest men cringe. Who was I to deny her a haircut?

I sighed. It wasn't that simple. It wasn't that simple at all.

Meanwhile, Miyoko stopped practicing. She regarded me curiously. Then, she picked up a sketchpad and sat in front of me. Her hand moved like a gentle stream, filling the plain paper with lines and shadows. With a quick wave, Miyoko brushed a few stray hairs out of the way.

"You hate it, don't you?" she smiled, her eyes never lifting from her work.

"Well… I don't think…" I tried to retort.

Yeah. How mature of me.

"Oh, just say it!" she scoffed, her eyebrows conveying all the gentle annoyance her eyes could not.

I couldn't lie to her:

"It looks pretty." Her eyebrow went up. "Really, it does."

Miyoko looked up from her sketch: "I am confused."

Emerald eyes stared at me, wrapping me in their warmth. The same eyes that touched my soul five centuries ago.

I smiled.

"Why did really do it?"

"It all started two days ago," Miyoko said, putting her sketchpad down, "I was leaving De Vinci Art Institute. I looked back at everything that happened over the past few months. And I realized I had trouble remembering the last time we were insulted, pushed around, degraded and bullied. I mean, I know we bumped into some racist assholes. But compare this to the time we spent in London in the beginning of the 20th century. We couldn't walk a centimeter without the entire street noticing it. But here, in this day and age… Most people notice us because of your bizarre excuse for a fashion sense or my sidewalk acrobatics_._They don't really care that you are "white" and I am not. Bottom like, we are finally treated for _who_we are, not _what_we are. 

"So, I decided it an important milestone that really should be marked…"

"By cutting your hair?" I asked

"Hey, lots of cultures use hair cutting for that sort of thing," Miyoko argued.

"In your culture, cutting your hair is rarely associated with anything good," I pointed out.

"Well," Miyoko shrugged, "it's too late for that now."

I laughed.

"You know, you could have saved me a lot of brooding if you would have just told me all this yesterday."

"You were in a bad mood," Miyoko explained, "I was worried that if I bring up racism, you would get all over-protective and try to stop me from getting a haircut."

She had a point there. I mean, I did blow what turned out to be a perfectly reasonable incident way out of proportion.

I should have known better.

"Mei?" I asked gently

"What is it?" Miyoko said, putting her sketchbook aside. She knew that I wouldn't call her by her birth name unless it was something important.

"I meant what I said earlier. You are the single most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Even if you lose all your hair and trade your clothes for rags, I will love you as much as I loved you the moment we met. So next time I get hung up on something as stupid as a hair style, please remind me of that."

She simply shook her head and wrapped me in a warm, tight hug.

"Stop being so paranoid," she whispered, her lips hovering millimeters away from my ears. "I am here. You are here. That's never going to change. Not if I can help it."

"I can drink to that," I chuckled

The sun was slowly crawling behind the horizon. The voices on the streets began to die down. The air was starting to feel chilly.  But I didn't mind. I realized that I shouldn't expect everything to go smoothly. We may have our misunderstandings, but in the end of the day, we still loved each other

We've been together for 497 years.  Why should we stop now?


End file.
